No, GM Didn't 'Lie' About The Volt, The Press Got It Wrong

You may have seen this morning's media frenzy about General
Motors' "lie" about the Volt's ability to directly drive the
wheels with its range-extending gasoline engine. What you may not
know is that the publications screaming "lie!" are doing little
more than running self-serving, tabloid-worthy headlines.

I'm not typically a fan of electric cars, at least in their
current states of being. A car that can't go from one town to
another across the desert Southwest, or which sees drastically
reduced performance depending on the weather isn't really a car,
in my book. It's a toy, a status symbol, a raised nose at the
"gas guzzlers" that drive by on their way to some distant
destination. But the 2011 Chevy Volt doesn't fall into that trap.

What the Volt isn't

In addition to driving 40 miles on nothing but electric power, it
carries its own generator on board, making the non-existent
national charging network irrelevant. And, as we learned today
(though we had off-the-record hints several months ago from some
of the Volt's top team members) it can also use the onboard
engine to add some direct power to the wheels once the battery is
depleted.

For a person that likes cars, appreciates efficiency, and
couldn't care less about the definitional semantics the rest of
the press is engaged in, that's fantastic. Is it a pure EV? Yes,
for the first 40 miles. After that, no, it was never intended to
be. Is it a hybrid?
Not really, as it can run at highway speeds on nothing but
electricity for its stated range of 40 miles, and falls back on
mechanical drive power only under certain conditions, which is
sort of the inverse of a typical mild hybrid. A plug-in hybrid?
Sort of, if you don't mind blurring a few lines.

The question you might be asking now is, "What, then, IS the
Volt?" There's an answer for that, but first we need some
background.

The "lie"

Sampling the buff book testing, since they got their hands on it
early and started the "GM lied" hysterics, the Volt is a family
sedan that's capable of real-world mileage in the 30-40 mpg range
over a week's period without any recharging. In other words, the
first 40 miles aside, the range-extending system delivers
performance about on par with real-world results from the
Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, Ford Fusion, and other
comparable hybrids.

The problem the buff books (and a few online outlets parroting
their stance) have with the newly-announced ability of the Volt
to supplement power with mechanical energy directly from the
on-board 1.4-liter four-cylinder, is that it's no longer purely
electric power driving the wheels.

This is a distinction without a difference. You can burn gasoline
to spin a generator to charge the batteries to power the electric
motors, or you can partially skip the middle man and send some of
that gas-generated power straight to the wheels. Either way, gas
is burned to turn the wheels.

We've tried to contact the Volt team to clarify whether sending
enough power from the range extender to the batteries to enable
pure electric highway cruising would have necessitated more
expensive circuitry, more elaborate cooling, or other elements
that would put the car out of its target cost range, but they're
understandably swamped at the moment. We think it's a reasonable
assertion, but we'll update you with the official word from GM as
soon as we can.

Let's take a look at some of GM's statements that are ostensibly
the source of the "lie." Inside Line cites lines like "The Chevrolet
Volt is not a hybrid. It is a one-of-akind, all-electrically
driven vehicle designed and engineered to operate in all
climates." This statement, in light of the ability of the Volt to
add direct drive from the onboard engine, isn't strictly
speaking, true. But is it a lie? The Volt is all-electric at any
speed for the first 40 or so miles. It's all-electric in
charge-sustaining mode at speeds below 70 mph. In only one
circumstance (speed-limit or higher highway driving) does it
augment electric drive with mechanical. And even when the
mechancial engine is kicking in some power the wheels are
simultaneously being driven by the electric motors. If it's a
lie, it's not one of omission, but of addition.

Jalopnik goes
on to construct a quotation from Volt chief engineer with a
strictness that would set even Antonin Scalia's teeth on edge.
Quoting Farah saying, "you're correct that the electric motor is
always powering the wheels, whereas in a typical hybrid vehicle
the electric motor and the gasoline engine can power the wheels.
The greatest advantage of an extended-range electric vehicle like
the Volt is the increased all electric range and the significant
total vehicle range combined," Jalopnik responded with "This
meant that the gasoline engine was nothing more than a 'range
extender' designed to charge the batteries which would allow the
electric drivetrain to continue to move the car — and allow GM to
claim that the Volt was something different, something new and
something worthy of taxpayer dollars. It turns out that's not
correct."

Actually, that is still correct. It just does something in
addition to Farah's remarks.

What the Volt really is

So what is the Volt? For the first 40 miles (and every 40 miles
after that, if you're in the target market sweet spot) it's a
pure EV. If you want to treat it as such, it's simply a battery
EV with a 40 mile range and a lot of extraneous hardware. Unlike
the LEAF or any other number of battery EVs, it won't leave you
stranded if you get out too far without an outlet nearby. And
unlike any mass-market hybrid, you can simply charge it each
night and go about your 40-miles-or-less daily business without
ever dipping into the world's diminishing supply of dinosaur
juice.

Instead of either the battery-only EVs or the standard/plug-in
hybrids,
the Volt takes a scene from the heavily-sponsored Transformers
movies and becomes an EV that generates its own charge from an
on-board generator. Drive it around town, it's still powered
purely by the electric motors. It's still an EV, just drawing its
power from its own portable grid. Remember--the grid the LEAF and
all other EVs pull their power from burns a considerable bit of
coal to produce that electricity, too, but you can't put a
coal-fired powerplant in the back of a LEAF. Sure, the gasoline
engine isn't as efficient or as clean as a powerplant, but now
we're talking differences of degree, not of kind.

But imagine now that your Volt has run out of its battery power,
and your return trip necessitates some highway driving. Instead
of saying "no sir, charge isn't high enough for highway speeds,"
the system dutifully kicks in and adds a little boost from the
combustion engine, allowing you to flow with traffic rather than
being an eco-friendly rolling road block. Convenient,
confidence-inspiring, and, by the way, something none of those
other EVs can do.

Why wait until now to tell us?

So if the Volt's ability to partially drive the wheels through
its on-board engine is actually a very useful feature, why did GM
hide that fact? The answer lies in patent applications and
corporate competitiveness. If GM had laid all its cards on the
table at the outset, you can bet Toyota,
Honda, Ford, and others would have been hard at work getting a
similar concept built before GM could patent the design. The
patent acquisition took time--understandable to anyone who knows
anything about the patent process. The result? A (relatively)
late-in-the-game announcement of the enhanced drive capability.

But GM almost certainly wasn't expecting this sort of negative
reaction, particularly from the ostensible enthusiasts at the
buff books. In fact, in
my interview with Rob Peterson back in June, we touched on
this very subject as rumors of a direct-drive solution for the
Volt's European cousin, the Ampera, had emerged. He stated only
that the Volt would operate purely in electric mode for the first
40 miles, the Volt drives at any speed without aid from the
combustion engine. As for the possibility of direct drive under
other circumstances, Peterson played coy due to the ongoing
patent application, but stated clearly that the Volt's powertrain
is a "very innovative solution," and that there is "no rush on
our part to tip our hand to our competitors." He even said we
could expect a good surprise or two as the Volt neared
production. We think this is one of them.
Semantic sand castles

Does that mean it's not an all-electric car the rest of the time?
No. It just means that in addition to being an all-electric car,
it has some hybrid-like capabilities. So Chevy delivers an EV
with 340 miles range and adds in a power boost to maintain
highway speeds even when the battery is discharged...and the
media complains about it? This does not compute.

Put another way, if you drive your LEAF toward the end of its
battery range, even if you have a charger waiting at the other
end of the road, it'll stick you in a speed-limited "limp home"
mode. The Volt's "limp home mode" lets you drive on the freeway
at the cost of a little electrical purity. The arbiters of
Green
Morality may cringe, but at least you'll make it home in time
to get the kids to soccer practice.

The "GM lied" fanatics can build their semantic sand castles and
kick down GM's own all day long, but at the end of the day, this
"lie" means the Volt is more capable than any other vehicle in
its class. Is a flashy headline really worth dragging what may be
the best EV/hybrid/futuremobile/whatever through the mud over a
case of dubitable nomenclature? Apparently, to some, it is.